Ian Richard McDonald 
BSc, PGCE, CSci, CPhys, MInstP, EurPhys, IEng, MIET, MBCS, CITP, ISEB Test Practitioner
Email: ws-work-enquirey@islandsys.com	Tel: ++44 (0)20 8949 1095  
OVERVIEW- Personal
Strategic test & quality assurance specialist with wide ranging public sector & private blue chip multinationals experience in defence, telecommunications, insurance, healthcare, aviation, new media and national security.  Experienced in full product life cycle, using V-model, Rapid Application Processes & Lean.  Prince 2 & ISEB Test Practitioner.  Leader of temporary & permanent specialist teams up to 700 engineers on worldwide multiple sites. 

Currently looking for a new position (permanent or Contract) within ideally Central London, SW London, Surrey or Hampshire boarders.  Located near mainline to Waterloo and the A3.  For locations further away, will consider as contract only as not looking to relocate, however contract daily rate adjusted to reflect travel and B&B costs.  Contract lengths usually 3months to a year, but for short consultancy over a few days will consider at a higher daily rate.
ACHIEVEMENTS
•	Cut defect leak at Symbian by over 46% in 18 months, making company world class in testing
•	Successfully delivered to time and schedule fully tested National Firearms Licensing Programme
•	Delivered to time & budget testing on Defra project reducing impact of  national crises
•	Contributed to winning bids for NATO & MoD battlefield communication systems at Cogent Defence
•	Innovated games test strategy at Electronic Arts (EA-Games) resulting in dramatic cost reductions
•	Successfully tested one of Europe’s first WAP sites for whole of Irish Republic
•	Produced test strategy for UK National Topographic database System Integration at Ordnance Survey
•	Sub-System Design Authority  on International Air Traffic Management systems, identifying weaknesses within overall systems and designing in safeguards
•	Designed software/hardware for intelligent interfaces on Sky Phone, as exhibited on BBC TV
•	Major contributor to design of Watchman (UK Air Defence) Radar console
•	Design Authority on Radar systems including London Luton airport.
FURTHER EDUCATION and PROFESSIONAL EXAMINATIONS
•	ISEB Testing Foundation and ISEB Test Practitioner (2008) – Plus 2 years IET (previously called IEE) Accredited Post Graduate Apprenticeship. 
•	PRINCE2 (Projects in Controlled Environments v2) Foundation and PRINCE2 Practitioner (2003).
•	BSc in Science – UK Open University finished 1997 - Degree includes science and mathematical modelling (includes IT content).  The core content was chosen by the Institute of Physics (IoP), towards CPhys.  Note I already had honours degree equivalence.  However I added to the chosen modules to provide a second BSc degree giving me a much broader science education.
•	PGCE Science Education  - London University 1988/89
•	Diploma in Electronics and Computer Technology – 
University of Westminster (London) 1987/88.  Projects:
•	Fast Array Sorting (Pascal under both Sun-UNIX and VAX-VMS) 
•	Design of an ARINC 429 test set, for Airborne Voice Communications Project, 6805 (ASM on VAX).  
Projects were judged to be of MSc standard.  Note the Diploma with HND gives honours degree equivalence.  However also have an Open University BSc degree.
•	HND Applied Physics - Portsmouth 1978/80.  Included electronics, microwaves, applied and pure physics, chemistry, mathematics, computing and engineering practices.

PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATION
•	Member of the British Computer Society (MBCS), Chartered IT Professional (CITP) in Software Systems Testing and QA.  
•	Member of the Institute of Engineering and Technology (MIET) – formally the IEE.  Registered with Engineering Council as an Incorporated Engineer (IEng) in Engineering Systems.  Currently Applying for CEng.
•	Member of Institute of Physics (MInstP) and the European Physical Society (EurPhys).
•	Chartered Physicist (CPhys).  Chartered Scientist (CSci).
TRAINING
•	Graduate of UK National Leadership Academy – Improvement and Development Agency 
•	Lean Projects – A personal two day presentation by Mary and Tom Poppendieck – authors of Lean Software Development. Presented at HelpHire.  
•	Estimation Workshop for Lean or Agile projects – Agile Experience Ltd
•	Pega Rules Process Commander Fundamentals – Pega Systems.
•	Various Rational courses (TestManager, ClearCase, ClearQuest, RequisitePro, RationalRose, etc) at Rational and at IBM.
•	Symbian OS Essentials.
•	Requirements Development and Management Training.  IBM
•	Goal Directed Project Management (GDPM) planning course.
•	Management Courses – Graduate Management Development Course at Bristol University (sponsored by Plessey) and at Brunel University (sponsored by Kingston upon Thames).  High Performing Teams (JAC International).
•	University of Westminster C++ programming short course (examined course - score 83%).
•	CTEC - Software Support Skills and Year 2000 (included A+ software and hardware support).
•	Rational Rose - including OOA Unified Modelling and Rational Unified Process (RUP).
•	Learning Tree - UNIX Hands-on Workshop.
•	Learning Tree - Java Hands-on Workshop.
•	Learning Tree – Java and XML Application development Hands-on Workshop.
•	Learning Tree – .NET and Visual Basic Programming.
•	Pega Systems – Pega Commander Foundations course.
•	SQL - PCMS assessment course.
•	Kennedy Carter OOA readers course (Shlaer-Mellor Process).
•	INTEL iAPX 86, 88, 186 part 1 assembler and Motorola MTT6-MC6805 assembler.
•	Studied for RSA Teacher/Trainer Diploma in IT (changed job before submitting dissertation).
•	Attended British Computer Society talks including ethical (white hat hacking) for security proving.
•	Symbian – Management course, Speed Reading & Mind Mapping, Symbian OS, Team Track and Perforce.  Delivered training on testing and in particular code and document review.
SECURITY CLEARANCE 
SC 	Cleared 10/05/2007 to 17/02/2012 (Computer Sciences Corporation at BAE Systems Ltd),
Previously cleared 04/07/2003 to 04/07/2008 (Cogent Defence Systems), Renewed PITO (2006).
CT 	Cleared 09/11/2005 to 09/11/2008 (IBM - Defra), Renewed Police IT Organisation (now called National Police Improvement Agency) Oct 2006.
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
Symbian Software Ltd - Chief Test Architect – London, Cambridge and Bangalore, India
(August 2007 – current) – Permanent position.  Company taken over by Nokia 03/12/2008.
Senior strategic position for an international Blue chip company, providing software operating systems for over 70%, of the world’s smart mobile phones.  Responsible for testing across a number of sites including teams in London, Cambridge, Bangalore, Beijing and Vancouver with over 750 engineering developers.  Company uses the V-model and is moving to Agile.
Implemented strategies and tooling, driving forward improvement in:
•	Technical Test Analysis techniques to ensure that code coverage is maximised for least effort.  Introduced tooling to support this.
•	Mentored members of the test community and dealt with issues as they arose.
•	Conceptualised Requirements for a test script editor, to bring about standardisation of scripting and improve traceability.  Advised on introduction of Test Management System (based on Mercury/HP).
•	Introduced DNA profiling of code (e.g. mapping code test coverage with code complexity and other metrics, to target high risk code and so reduce product risk).  
•	Drove forward improvements with Risk and Requirements Gap analysis.
•	Implemented Test Escape Analysis, improved review techniques and deliver review training.  
•	Review test artefacts and act as a consultant to test leads.  
•	Developed new training course in Creating Testable Requirements and Test Escape Analysis.  
•	Worked with outside consultants to create training material in negative testing and exploratory testing.  
•	Liaised with key stakeholders within the international organisation to ensure that polices are fully implemented.  
•	Improved code coverage by ensuring code changes reflected within existing regression tests.  Conduct interviews and carry out audits.  
•	Member of advisory group for planning to move towards Agile development.
By the end of first year at Symbian, the company moved to becoming world class with one of the lowest defect counts delivered to customers.

Island Systems Ltd – Testing Consultancy (1997 – March 2007)
•	Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC) – based at British Aerospace (BAe) – Test Manager (May 2007 – July 2007)
Test Manager for the business process control product used for all of BAe.  Devised test strategy, based upon using the WebSphere Business Modeller tool, for a new .NET financial reporting package.
•	National Police Improvement Agency (NPIA) – previously called the Police IT Organisation (PITO) (October 2006 – March 2007)
Test Manager on National Firearms Licensing Programme.  Oracle database (9i and 10g), XML schemas, Web Logic, Business Objects, Site Minder, Blue 8 Gazetteer and interface to the Police National Computer.  Team lead, strategy, hands-on testing, scripting.  Due to late delivery of Rational tool suite, initially implemented test case control and reporting using Excel, Ultra Comp Red Box defect tracking tool, Quotium QTest Load Testing tool.  Produced test reports, liased with third party supplier and in-house developers made recommendations to board level on process improvement.  Techniques passed onto team used in future products. Later offered further work, but had started at the Computer Science Corporation.
•	HelpHire Group plc – Test Lead (June 2006 – 15 September 2006).  
	Cover for test lead on a Lean project (including Scrum) for accident management company crossing the insurance and legal industries, working on a call centre support application managing the entire customer interface for this top FTSE company.  Position involves test team leadership (9 plus), project reporting, recruitment of testers and a full time company test consultant.  Project used Pega, Mercury QTP and Quality Centre (Test Director).
•	IBM / Defra Guildford and London – Test Manager (March 2005-March 2006). 
Worked on the Whole Farm Approach (WFA) – phase 1 (e.gov) project connected to the government gateway in an IBM Rapid Application Centre, this enables farmers and growers to work with the many rural agencies across the UK and EU for processing online information about stock movement, land use, disease, subsidies, rural payments, etc.  This was a high profile project, since avian influenza started to spread across the world and WFA was part of the government’s strategic tools in dealing with an impending epidemic.  Responsibility over the project life cycle (1 year) was to develop a test strategy and plan, recruit a test team and implement testing to schedule and within budget.  Work included client facing (including UAT – including running customer advice sessions), dealing with third party business partners (e.g. SunGard for WinQ and WebQ) and staff training.  I reviewed the content of system requirements, raising amendments as required. Product was Java based with some use of HTML and XML and delivered on an IBM server supporting Oracle and WebSphere on AIX.  Testing was supported with the Rational tool set (Test Manager, Clear Quest, Clear Case and Requisite Pro).  For database work Toad and additional in-house test harnesses were used with some use of SQL.  Work included input to requirements in terms of testability and dealing with clarifications, risk and issue logs, presenting project reports (including stats), etc.  Testing was upon multiple Windows platforms.
•	BearingPoint London – Engineering Consultant on BT Bid. (February 2005 – March 2005)
Provided technical support to this IT solutions provider to prepare a successful bid (worth £6 million) to create a fully automated Test Factory for around 400 testers to carry out work for British Telecom, switching to an Agile methodology with offshore support.  Eventually offered full time employment, but had signed contract with IBM.
•	Cable and Wireless (Hyperlink - London) – Test Team Leader for Portal (July 2004 – October 2004)
National Health Service (NHS) Email and Calendar system for England and Wales.  Based upon MiraPoint, using a Rapid Development process. Led portal team, wrote test scripts to test against requirements documentation, regression, etc.  Tools used: Mercury Test Director and QuickTest Pro.  Contract was at time only NHS project to be within expected delivery tolerance.  Tested across multiple browsers including Opera, Netscape, IE and Mozilla, over different Windows platforms.  Coached and supported junior testers.
•	Cogent Defence and Security Networks Ltd – Test and Engineering Consultant (owned by Electronic and Defence Systems - EADS and Nortel).  (April 2003-April 2004)
•	Wrote detailed project test plan to support a bid for a military electronic messaging system (EMS) to be deployed across NATO, from command centres to battlefield (won contract and only had very minor clarification questions from NATO on submission).  The NATO bidding rules can exclude any company who omits requested details from requirements.  Was brought on the project 2 months behind schedule, so deadlines were very tight.  Project budgeting, estimating, planning, etc.  Project used V- model.
•	Technical support to engineering and project managers and acted as QA manager on United Kingdom Military Satellite Communications System (UKMSCS) Skynet 5 – Ministry of Defence (MoD) Army interface (Reacher Project).  Project used V- model.  Dealt with Test and QA issues concerning project sub-contractors.  Project budgeting, estimating, planning, requirements, etc.  Again won bid.
•	Electronic Arts Europe Ltd (EA-Games) – Test and QA Consultant.  Worked to increase the efficiency of the QA process for this leading Games Company working on a number of key product games and platforms (including Harry Potter PS2).  Role was to use the projects as examples to find ways of improving the test process and cutting production costs for the company and improving product quality, after which time findings were personally presented to the Board.  These are now adopted across EA (world wide).  Specified and aided in the subsequent successful fast development of in-house test tools. Use of McCabe Tools.
•	Symbian Software Ltd – Senior Tester.  Wrote Pseudo code for automated management test system and font format conversion.  Produced Communications testing plan.  Produced Manual functional test scripts (for automation later).  Wrote a design document for a mass automation suite.  Tests on PDA’s and Mobile Phones.  Work included use of BRUTUS SA-100 (Intel Strong Arm Microprocessor) and CMA-120 \"Willow Motherboard\" Cogent Computer Systems emulators, Flash Cards, evaluation of TestQuest Pro Automated Testing package (Previously B-Tree Systems).  Some limited Microsoft Visual C++ v 6.0 - used some C with TestQuest.  Worked also with Zope, HTML, MS Office (Access, Word, Excel), Lotus Notes, Psion (including: Word, Sheet, Jotter, WAP applications), SMS, FAX, Bluetooth and IR.  
•	Compaq – Dublin Ireland based at Eircell – Test Consultant.  Worked on testing one of Europe’s first WAP systems, developing and implementing test cases.
•	
Canon Research Europe Ltd – Test Consultant.  Developed test cases and strategies for 
•	Multilingual Information and Document Access System (MIDAS) retrieval engine utilising Natural Language Processing (NLP), 
•	Small Object Modeller – SOM (renders a 3-dimensional image from a series of 2 dimensional images).
•	Embedded voice / speech recognition systems for PDA’s. 
•	Introduced this R&D department to testing techniques and strategies.  Coached staff on development and testing techniques with view to improving performance of project output and quality.
•	Intuwave Ltd - Senior Tester.  Testing an embedded connectivity system for the EPOC v 6 Symbian operating system.  PDA’s and Mobile Phones. 
•	Argo Interactive (Ubiquinox) - Senior Test Analyst.  Developed test cases for WAP Server system. Phone compatibility testing, load testing, etc.  Project used Rapid Development Process.
•	Nortel Communications - Senior Test Analyst.  Tested UNIX and NT based network-monitoring tools.  Designed test strategies, wrote and carried out tests, designed a test tool (which produced test data in minutes, which previously took days), developed training material for test team.
•	TesCom UK Ltd - Test Consultant / Test Manager / Senior Test Analyst.  Consultancy subcontract, including lead tester and test manager – produced training material, specified test tools, used various test tools – mainly Mercury (including Test Director) and Rational suite on various projects.  Project budgeting, estimating, planning, etc.   Headed up a number of projects:
•	Cable and Wireless - Test Manager / Senior Test Analyst. Worked on a large number of high usage web & email sites.  Devised test strategy, carried out testing and managed a test team for testing a virtual Internet Service Provision (vISP) system hosting such Internet Services as Tesco, Virgin, ic24 and many others.  Use of RadView Web Load and Mercury Test Director.  Project used a Rapid Development Process.
•	Cable and Wireless - Senior Test Analyst.   Produced the HTML test scripts (including Java script) for Digital TV browser and Test Director (manual) test scripts for an Electronic Programme Guide.  These test pages were to test browser compatibility.  Use of Mercury Test Director.  Project used a Rapid Development Process.
•	Radio Spares - Senior Test Analyst.  Tested overseas versions of CD-ROM catalogue including on-line ordering.
•	Ordnance Survey – Test Consultant.  Produced a testing methodology for a new mapping system.  Produced the Test Strategy and detailed Test Plan for the National Topographic database (NTD2) System Integration.  Project adopted the V-model, so tests had to link in with requirements, etc.
•	XCEL Communications Ltd (became part of Nortel) - Senior Tester.    Tested a Windows NT based network monitoring product called X-CEL Net-TELL Reporter.  Worked on Test specification authoring (installation, performance and Year 2000).  Test case preparation, running of test scripts, checking bug fixes. Installation of Windows NT and 98 dual boot systems. Project used V-model.
•	Intermec Technologies Corporation in partnership with IBM for Parcel Force - Senior Tester.    Collection and Delivery Management System Portable Data Capture Device.  Checked and Analysed testing requirements against software functional requirements, wrote manual test specifications and scripts.  
•	Multimedia CD ROM Author/Product Manager - Wrote educational multimedia CD-ROM's for publishing through Microbooks and I-Seek.  
•	Web site authoring (HTML and Java Script).  
•	Bunzl Fine Paper (Leicester, Surrey and Glasgow) – Test Consultant.  Responsible for drawing up test plans, scripts and actual testing of company server systems (finance and stock control systems) for year 2000 compliance.
Senior Quality Engineer (Test Manager) - Flomerics Ltd - Full time (2 years) 1996-1997. 
•	The QA Manager and Lead Tester for this leading Blue Chip Computerised Fluid Dynamics (CFD) Company, directing test operations within the UK and USA.  Moved this company towards ISO9001 and level 4 of the Software QA Capability Maturity Model (CMM), establishing process measures (metrics capture and use) to initiate corrective actions and turning around a key product that was over a year behind schedule through to product launch.  Taught staff how to write system requirements.  Wrote test strategies, advised on system design changes, wrote test scripts, carried out tests and led product test teams for other products that were migrated to other platforms (e.g. UNIX to Windows NT).  Project budgeting, estimating, planning, staff interviewing, etc.  The QA Managers service was provided to all sites from the UK head office to offices in Europe and the USA.

Systems Engineering Analyst – Siemens-Plessey Air Traffic Management (now Thales) -  Full Time (2 years) 1994-1996.
•	Sub-System Design Authority (business / systems analyst and team leading) on a number of International ATM systems.  Responsibilities included: Operational Role and Position Management (Sweden, Finland and Hungry), Search and Rescue (Finland), Military Communications (Finland).  Part of the work was outsourced at sites in London, South Coast and Wales and so was also involved in co-ordinating team effort.  Produced customer presentations and proof of concepts. Wrote system requirements.  Managed co-ordination of team across a number of sites.  Project budgeting, estimating, planning, business requirements analysis, etc.  The Search and Rescue system included the management of witness reports and forms, as well as search parameters.

Teacher - Kingston upon Thames 
•	Head of Physics and Electronics - Full-time (5 years) 1989 to 1994.  Taught courses in A level Physics, Science, Electronics, BTEC Engineering – pupils achieved high pass rates.  Apart from supervising over 140 pupils directly, supporting other teaching and laboratory staff in the department and deputising for Head of Faculty.  Developed an E-learning suite to assist pupils in additional learning.  Trained both new teachers and university students on work experience.  Managed department budget and staff. (Note have done supply teaching within London between contracts: including Science, Maths, IT – Access, Word, Excel, DTP, Web Publishing and IT applications).  In addition was co-author of the borough COSH laboratory handbook.

Senior Engineer - Racal Avionics (now Thales) - Permanent (2 years) 1986 to 1988.  
•	Team leader (Embedded Software and System Design and Integration Engineering) responsible for design (hardware & software), implementation and testing of all microprocessor controlled interface sub-systems in this state of the art GPS airborne satellite voice communications project (Sky Phone – featured on a BBC TV Science Programme).  Managed contractors on software team.  Sourced and vetted subcontractors for custom-made power supplies.  Left following redundancy (period of depression in UK industry) and returned to University.  Produced customer presentations and proof of concepts.  Project budgeting, estimating, planning, etc.  Involved from inception to first working version.

Principal Engineer, Radar Systems - Plessey Naval & Radar Systems (now Thales) - Permanent (6 years) 1980 to 1986.   Promoted over 6 times
•	Design Authority on a number of TMA Air Traffic Control systems (4 including a London system).  Included site support, system configuration, bids, project and budget management, business analyst work, running DEC and Plessey diagnostic software, installation documentation, schedules, items lists, author of diagnostic software (SARA MACRO), project budgeting, estimating, planning, objective setting activities, handbooks, progress chasing (engineering, test, QA, factory, drawing office, etc).  Co-ordinated projects.  This work included the roles of Business Analyst, Hardware Engineer, Software Engineer, Systems Engineer and Test Analyst.  This gave me a thorough grounding in engineering from inception to product delivery and post delivery support.  This involved factory, system and User Acceptance testing.  At a management level worked with site teams, client, factory floor, factory test department, drawing office, buying office, technical publications departments, projects department, 3rd party suppliers, and other engineering project teams.
•	Part of design team on Air Defence Radar Console (UK MoD - Watchman) and Tiina (Finnish Air Force).  Was involved from product inception to final delivery of first units.  Produced RADAR data interface (hardware and firmware), microprocessor multi-layer back-plane, wiring looms, etc.  Produced diagnostic software for input devices (PLM / ASM). Gained extensive experience across entire engineering process including Project Management, budget control, technical publications, drawing office, systems, installation planning, technical publications, QA and Test, development of: software  (assembler and RTL/2), hardware (Intel and DEC based).  Was told that I had “best all round engineering experience within the company” at that time.  Responsible for trouble-shooting teams for:
•	 Built-in Test Equipment (software, Embedded Software - firmware and hardware), 
•	Plot Combiner (firmware and software) – Combining associated Secondary and Primary Radar Plots to reduce screen clutter for Air Traffic Controllers.
•	Compiled test strategies and wrote test specifications at every level, from PCB testing, firmware (embedded software) testing, software testing, unit and sub-system testing, factory acceptance testing, commissioning testing – including air trials and User Acceptance Testing.  Wrote, designed and created test harnesses.  Produced and ran diagnostic software.  Designed and produced test equipment and test software for cursive displays and army plasma displays (Wavel project). 
•	Assisted in training new graduates.  
•	Provided Post Sales and Customer Support to other ATC systems.
•	Served a graduate apprenticeship – IEE (now called MIET) approved, while working on 5 major ATC TMA (air traffic control – target marshalling area – also known as stacking approach) systems.  Training included – among other: systems, manufacturing, software design, electronic design and project management.
  
HOBBIES AND INTERESTS 
•	Author – one teaching book with a publisher, working on fictional work.
•	Past sporting activities include: ten pin bowling,  rowing, fencing, Judo and Aikido.  
•	Have two children (one who has just started university and a younger one who plays Hockey for a local club and has just started her GCSE work) so support them.
•	Supported local charities through fund raising.
•	Have appeared presenting on UK terrestrial TV.
•	Genealogy - have tracked part of family tree as far back as 1700.
•	Elected London Councillor for 16 years (Deputy Mayor 200-2001, front bench 2002-2006)
•	Past MEP Candidate for London 

REFERENCES
•	HR Manager – Symbian Software Ltd – “While at Symbian Ian introduced a number of successful initiatives that have dramatically reduced our defect leakage to customers by over 42%... Symbian becoming world class... Ian is diligent and a conscientious worker and is a qualified and experienced practitioner in the testing arena”.
•	Project Manager – Police IT Organisation (National Police Improvement Agency) – “Ian has shown himself to be a very capable leader and has demonstrated sound judgement in the manner in which he has managed his role.  I would have no hesitation in working with him again on any of my projects”.
•	Software Development Manager – HelpHire Ltd – “I am happy to provide a personal reference for Ian McDonald.  Ian has proved to be a highly experienced and professional individual.”
•	Senior Test Leader – Nortel Networks - “Ian’s work was always extremely thorough and he was happy to interact not only with other members of the system test team but development as well.  His test cases were of a high quality as were his problem reports. Ian picked up the products very quickly and was happy to find out information on his own. I would definitely employ Ian again if the need for a contractor arose.”

•	QA Manager – Eircell – Dublin - “Quick and tactful to persuade others in the merit of his ideas. Once people were on board, he was able to organise the work to be executed and assign people to those tasks. However Ian did not leave the execution of the tests to others.  He took an active role and led from the front.  This was a key ingredient in his success in this project.  Ian was a pleasure to work with. He kept me informed of all-important issues and was always positive in outlook. Always on time, honest and calm he was a model team player.”